Senate Votes To Cut Benefits, But Not Salary

May 4, 1985|By Dorothy Collin, Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — In the midst of its drawn-out effort to cut federal spending by more than $50 billion in fiscal 1986, the Senate on Friday briefly dallied with taking a $7,510-a-year salary cut. But the move failed on a tie vote.

The 10 percent pay cut was offered as an amendment to the 1986 budget proposal shortly after the Senate voted to reduce funds for Medicaid and Medicare by $17.5 billion over three years. But that reduction was $2.6 billion less than what was proposed in the Republican budget package under consideration.

Rejection of the pay cut proposal was something of a surprise because its sponsors assumed their colleagues would want to go on record as sharing in the sacrifices needed to reduce the huge federal budget deficit.

``I thought the vote would be almost unanimous,`` said Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan.

But the amendment was rejected by a 49-49 vote that cut across party lines. Both Florida senators, Democrat Lawton Chiles and Republican Paula Hawkins, voted in favor.

The amendment to restore $2.6 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funds, which was approved 93-6, was proposed by the leadership, partly as an effort to head off a Democratic amendment that would have restored even more money and partly as a way to mollify some Republicans.

Under the proposal, Medicare Part B premiums for out-patient treatment would increase beginning in 1987, but only by 5 percent instead of the 10 percent called for in the budget. Medicaid expenses paid by states also would not increase as much as the budget proposed.